And i just this minute got it to finally work

I Think i had a combination of issues, while messing about with M203 I had at some point set the max speed of the Z axis to 1800.00 instead of 180.00 and I hadn't noticed, that in conjunction with M566 being too set too high compounded the problem.

i have managed to get it working with the following

M203 Z180.00 ; set maximum speeds (mm/min)
M566 Z10 ; set maximum instantaneous speed changes (mm/min)
M350 Z32 ; configure microstepping
M92 Z 6400 ; set steps per mm
M201 Z20 ; set accelerations (mm/s^2)
M906 Z2000 ; set motor currents (mA)

Thank you to everyone for their input i will mark this as solved

And I fixed it!!

After @engikeneer confirmed that it should work with no need to have the extra lines in the start g-code and @Arnold_R_Clark advising me to do a re-install and that didnt work it got me thinking, so i just did a system rollback in win10 to before i even downloaded PrusaSlicer.

I then went and checked in my appdata folders and i found a very old installation of PrusaSlicer from over 2 years ago, i must have tried it uninstalled and forgot, i used to run simplify3d before installing ideamaker.

deleted the old appdata files, ran a regedit scan using CC cleaner and that cleared out a pile of old broken registry files relating to PrusaSlicer and a reboot and re-install and it now works as @engikeneer said it should. it must have been windows being windows..

thanks to you both for helping me to fix this with the confirmation and the re-install ideas. i will mark it as a question and solved.

thank you again

@engikeneer said in PrusaSlicer oddness:

@bertie-basset you dont need to add custom gcode to set the temperatures in PrusaSlicer. Just delete that line from the custom gcode bit and it will automatically add one in with the correct temperature you have set for the filament you are using

Thank you for confirming what i thought, in that it should just work but it didnt/doesnt.

which leads to if its supposed to work as you say i wonder why it isnt !!

@Arnold_R_Clark thanks for the help too

I use Ideamaker which until recently has been fine but has started producing a problem (across multiple machines) where the inner/outer shell extrusion width is too narrow and that means the shells are not fully fused to the model.

I have played with differing setting to try to overcome the issue to no avail, and it doesn't have a dedicated setting for perimeter, external perimeter width so im at a loss with it how to fix ideamaker, their forum admin dont seem interested in posting my question with regards that issue as the post has never been approved/posted.

So I thought I would try the latest PrusaSlicer (2.4.1) I have reached what I feel is a roadblock with it regards usability. now maybe im not understanding how to use PrusaSlicer properly but for the life of me i cannot get it to heat up the nozzle and bed in what i see as a logical way, so i thought i would ask the huge knowledge base here.

my problem is that in my "start g-code" i have the following setup (in this case for PETG)

M83                                   ; extruder relative mode
M568 P0 R200 S230                     ; set extruder standby & active tool temps
M190 S80                              ; set bed temp wait for that temp to be reached
M109 S230                             ; wait for tool temp to be reached
G32                                   ; home & level the gantry
M290 R0 S0                            ; clear any baby stepping
G29 S1 P"heightmap.csv"               ; load the height map                      
G92 E0                                ; set extruder position to 0

This works perfect and the prints that PrusaSlicer is giving me is very nice.

But my the oddness starts when i want to print another material say ABS I have to manually go in and change the start g code in the printer settings tab to suit the temps of ABS to get the slicer to pre-heat to suit ABS and changing the start g-code every-time I wanted to change the material I wanted to print was a P.I.T.A.

I have created a workaround by setting up individual user presets of the printer settings for each differing material for example

Core-XY 300mm PETG
Core-XY 300mm ABS

To me having to do that seems illogical as there is a filament settings tab, logically you should be able to set the pre-heat temps for each differing material in there instead of in the printer settings tab and the slicer then sets pre-heat to what the filament temp setting is.

I know and understand that the slicer initiates any custom g-code in the filaments settings tab after it has processed the start g-code but it just seems the wrong way to do things .

Does anyone have any constructive input as to how to implement a better way to get the slicer to initiate a pre-heat of the printers heaters without having to resort to multiple differing printer user pre-sets ?

And i just this minute got it to finally work

I Think i had a combination of issues, while messing about with M203 I had at some point set the max speed of the Z axis to 1800.00 instead of 180.00 and I hadn't noticed, that in conjunction with M566 being too set too high compounded the problem.

i have managed to get it working with the following

M203 Z180.00 ; set maximum speeds (mm/min)
M566 Z10 ; set maximum instantaneous speed changes (mm/min)
M350 Z32 ; configure microstepping
M92 Z 6400 ; set steps per mm
M201 Z20 ; set accelerations (mm/s^2)
M906 Z2000 ; set motor currents (mA)

Thank you to everyone for their input i will mark this as solved

@fcwilt

yes i was able to drop to 800 and i tried running them very slowly that didnt help, i will see if i can get a full set of T8 leadscrew via Amazon

@fcwilt @droftarts

thank you for the pointers I dropped the acceleration down to 10 then 5 and still no joy.

i fitted a set of T8 leadscrews that are not long enough but everything works just fine with them...

@droftarts

thank you that is a great spot. i didnt think of it as that is just what the config tool spat out.

i will test now and report thank you again.

@fcwilt said in steps per mm for Z axis:

@bertie-basset

Well if they are moving satisfactorily other than the distance moved you merely need to adjust the Z value in the appropriate M92.

Issue a command to move Z by 100mm. Measure how far it actually moved. Then compute the new Z value using the ratio of the two distances.

New Z Value = Current Z value * (100 / distance actually moved) .

Repeat as needed until satisfied.

Frederick

In theory yes, in reality NO.

As i said in my original post when you put the required number to get the amount of travel required, the motors dont move they just sit and whine, slowly bring the number down until you get the motors to move (even over 2amps) and the distance traveled is less than the amount requested. I know the math its just not doing what its should be doing which is why im scratching my head.

@markz said in steps per mm for Z axis:

@bertie-basset I have almost the same settings you do for the same hardware (other than I've got 1.8 motors), other than the current. If correcting the max current doesn't work you might check and make sure each Z motor is actually moving in the direction you think (you can move them individually to test). If one Z motor is going the other direction...

I re-checked they all run in the correct direction....

@markz

thanks good point, i though i had checked that, as everything appeared to move in the right direct when i changed the steps per/mm but i will re-check.